Taranaki right place for wave-powered future

Taranaki's rugged coastline would be a prime location for wave-powered energy projects.

At the New Zealand Coastal Society Conference, held in New Plymouth yesterday, Dr John Huckerby from Power Projects in Wellington said Taranaki was one of the top spots to develop wave and tidal energy resources.

Prime locations for the renewable energy resource is the coastline from Cape Farewell at the top of the South Island to Opunake.

"Around Taranaki it would be more attractive to develop the technology with waves not tides," Dr Huckerby said.

Harnessing the power of the ocean waves to make electricity has been used around the world and has yet to be properly developed in New Zealand.

But Dr Huckerby said he could see the vast resource being used within the next five to 10 years.

If Taranaki was to get a wave farm it would likely be about 2km offshore.

"You would not be able to see the devices due to the curvature of the earth and, in some instances, the device is completely submerged."

The wave machines would be anchored to the seabed, but would not make much of an environmental foot print, Dr Huckerby said.

"As a general plan people install several of the machines, say 50 or more, to generate power. There are arrays of wave farms or parks around the world as an environmental power source."

Dr Huckerby said marine energy on a utility scale could generate enough electricity by itself to sustain a place like Stewart Island and, in time, a larger population.

But he said with any new technology - it comes with a price.

"The cost of electricity generated from a wave farm is about two or three times that of, say, what you are paying for what they are generating at the New Plymouth power station."

The largest outlay would be the capital cost of building and fitting the machines, but Dr Huckerby was not clear on a figure.

"Like anything when it is new and has not been fully developed, it is more expensive but in time the cost will be reduced."

He says wave farms have little impact on the surf and only in extreme conditions such as storms would there be smaller waves on shore.

"It would be a difference of about 10cm, visually impossible to see so there would not be a large impact at all. Waves tend to reform around objects in their path."

He said despite the energy source being both renewable and environmentally responsible it would never replace the current wind, oil and gas.

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